C. «Repetition,» «Handing down,» and « Erwidert»

Right at the beginning of section 74, Heidegger reminds readers that «resoluteness gains its authenticity as anticipatory resoluteness. In this, Dasein understands itself with regard to its potentiality-for-Being, and it does so in such a manner that it will go right under the eyes of Death in order thus to take over in its thrownness that entity which it is itself, and to take it over wholly. The resolute taking over of one's factical 'there', signifies, at the same time, that the Situation is one which has been resolved upon» (BT 434; SZ 382f.). Concerning possible resolutions in particular cases, he then says that «we must ask whence, in general , Dasein can draw those possibilities upon which it factically projects itself» (BT 434; SZ 383). It is within this context that Heidegger writes the notorious passages on heritage, destiny, fate, struggle, and «the community, of a {sic } people» (BT 435-437; SZ 383-385),^[17] on which I will comment in chapters 2 and 3. However, I would like to point out already here that it is important to note that probably already «Erbe» (SZ 383; «heritage» BT 435), but at any rate surely «Schicksal» (SZ 384; «fate,» BT 435) and «Geschick,» that is, «das Geschehen der Gemeinschaft, des Volkes» (SZ 384; «destiny . . . the historizing of the community, of {the}

people,» BT 436) are something only authentic Dasein gets in touch with by detaching itself from the «they» and by running ahead toward death. Furthermore, those terms («heritage,» «fate,» «community,» «people») appear only in the singular and mainly with the definite article. The plural, «individual fates,» «our fates,» occurs only so that these individual fates can be tied back to «destiny » in the singular (SZ 384; BT 436). Finally, in this entire section on «destiny » there is not the slightest hint of any concept of an utopian ideal that is different from the past and might guide the conversation with the past. What Heidegger concretely means by «vorlaufende Entschlossenheit» (SZ 382; «anticipatory resoluteness,» BT 434), would be closer to what Hans Jonas characterizes as the «tormented self» (MH 199). Every Dasein—the ordinary, the authentic, and the inauthentic Dasein—is ecstatic and futural, and some ordinary Dasein might have some futural utopia. But ordinary Dasein is what authentic Dasein must detach itself from. However, «painfully detaching oneself from the falling {verfallenden} publicness of the "today"» (BT 449; SZ 397) authentic Dasein runs into something that in itself cannot offer any positive utopian ideals: «One's anticipatory projection of oneself on that possibility of existence which is not to be outstripped—on death—guarantees only the totality and authenticity of one's resoluteness. But those possibilities of existence which have been factically disclosed are not to be gathered from death» (BT 434; SZ 383). Therefore, either there is no utopian ideal at all, or this utopian ideal is the very past itself, the community of the people that discloses itself to authentic Dasein in Dasein's running ahead to death, and to which Dasein «hands itself down» (BT 437; SZ 385). Thus, one completely misinterprets the entire passage if one makes a distinction between an utopian ideal and the past and maintains that the utopian ideal enables one to keep a distance from the past, to criticize it, or to choose among the different possibilities it offers. Rather, the utopian ideal is the past itself, which discloses itself to Dasein in Dasein's moment of running ahead to death.

After the passage on heritage and destiny, Heidegger rephrases the relation of past and Dasein in terms of «Wiederholung» and «ßberlieferung» (SZ 385; «repetition» and «handing down» BT 437). «ßberlieferung» most often means tradition, and the loss of tradition was what haunted German intellectuals between World War I and World War II—and by no means only them. This theme has found one of its most concise expressions in a passage in Walter Benjamin's 1936 essay "The Storyteller." Using the notion of «Erfahrung» (experience) for a way of life in which, with the authority of age, the elders can pass on their experiences to the younger generation in proverbs and stories, he writes:

Experience has fallen in value. . .. With the [First] World War a process began to become apparent which has not halted since then. Was it not noticeable at the end of the war that men returned from the battlefield grown silent—not

richer, but poorer in communicable experience? What ten years later was poured out in the flood of war books was anything but experience that goes from mouth to mouth. And there was nothing remarkable about that. For never has experience been contradicted more thoroughly than strategic experience by tactical warfare, economic experience by inflation, bodily experience by mechanical warfare, moral experience by those in power. A generation that had gone to school on a horse-drawn streetcar now stood under the open sky in a countryside in which nothing remained unchanged but the clouds, and beneath these clouds, in a field of force of destructive torrents and explosions, was the tiny, fragile human body.^[18]

Already by December 1933, in a journal edited in Prague, Die Welt im Wort , Benjamin had published an essay entitled, "Erfahrung und Armut" (Experience and poverty). It contains a passage almost identical to the one quoted above,^[19] and presents Benjamin's interpretation of the works of Adolf Loos, Paul Klee, Paul Scheerbart, and others as efforts «to get rid of experience.» To get rid of experience is the new «dream of human beings today,» one we can dream of by reading «Mickey Mouse.»^[20]

For conservatives, this destruction of Überlieferung took place in the parliament of Weimar and in the big cities, notably Berlin, with their night-bars, with all their different sorts of strange Mickey Mouses, with «Asphalt-Literaten» («asphalt writers») and «Neger-Jazz» («nigger jazz»), and, of course, with social democrats and communists and Jews. It is this situation that is addressed in sections 35-37 of Being and Time —the sections on idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity^[21] —and that is implicitly evoked in section 74. Prone to the distractions of the «they,» having lost stable traditions, Dasein must detach itself from the distractions of the «they» to realize its own nullity and finitude, which are ignored by the «they.» It is only this authentic Dasein that becomes the promise of a resurrection, or of a defense, of the threatened tradition:

The resoluteness which comes back to itself and hands itself down {Die auf sich zurückkommende, sich überliefernde Entschlossenheit}, then becomes the repetition of a possibility of existence that has come down to us {Wiederholung einer überkommenen Existenzmöglichkeit}. Repeating is handing down explicitly {Die Wiederholung ist die ausdröckliche Überlieferung }—that is to say, going back into the possibilities of the Dasein that has-been-there. The authentic repetition of a possibility of existence that has been—the possibility that Dasein may choose its hero—is grounded existentially in anticipatory resoluteness; for it is in resoluteness that one first chooses the choice which makes one free for the struggle of loyally following in the footsteps of that which can be repeated. (BT 437; SZ 385)

In the note, the translators comment on the German verb «wiederholen»: «While we usually translate 'wiederholen' as 'repeat', this English word is hardly adequate to express Heidegger's meaning. Etymologically, 'wieder-

holen' means 'to fetch again'; in modem German usage, however, this is expressed by the cognate separable verb 'wieder . . . holen', while 'wiederholen' means simply 'to repeat' or 'do over again'» (BT 437, n. 1). According to their view, Heidegger intends none of these meanings, however: «Heidegger departs from both these meanings, as he is careful to point out. For him 'wiederholen' does not mean either a mere mechanical repetition or an attempt to reconstitute the physical past; it means rather an attempt to go back to the past and retrieve former possibilities , which are thus 'explicitly handed down' or 'transmitted'» (BT 437, n. 1).

Whatever Heidegger concretely means by «repetition,» there is some distance, some gap, between the past and Dasein that has to be bridged so that Dasein can become the repetition. Heidegger fills this gap with a very subtle as well as nasty play with the words «Überlieferung» (SZ 385; «handing down,» BT 437) and «sich überliefernde Entschlossenheit» (SZ 385; «The resoluteness which . . . hands itself down,» BT 437). «Überlieferung» means tradition, and with the exception of liberals, leftists, and analytical philosophers avant la lettre, hardly anyone, at least at Heidegger's time, objected to sentences in which «Übeflieferung» was the active subject. In fact, conservatives liked such sentences very much, for example, «Die Überlieferung sagt uns, daß . . .» (tradition tells us to . . .) or «Übeflieferung hat uns gelehrt und fordert von uns, daß wir ihr gehorchen» (tradition has taught us and demands from us that we obey it). Only by detaching itself from the «they» and by becoming «free for its death» (BT 437; SZ 385) does Dasein become the site of the repetition of the past. Only in this moment can Dasein relate itself to the past, only now can it, so to speak, grasp the past. Dasein actively appropriates the past, «sich selbst die ererbte Möglichkeit überliefernd » (SZ 385; «by handing down to itself the possibility it has inherited ,» BT 437). The past, the «heritage» (BT 435; «Erbe,» SZ 383) that Dasein appropriates, has already disappeared or is in danger of disappearing because the ordinary Daseine have ignored and have removed themselves from this past. However, by detaching itself from the ordinary Daseine and actively appropriating the vanished or vanishing past, Dasein's activity is transformed into an act of submission to the heritage and the past. Heidegger indicates this by switching from «sich selbst die ererbte Möglichkeit über-liefernd » (SZ 385; «handing down to itself the possibility it has inherited ,» BT 436) to «sich überliefernde Entschlossenheit» (SZ 385; «The resoluteness which . . . hands itself down,» BT 437). The grammatical subject of the first sentence is Dasein («Only an entity which . . . ofhaving been ,» BT 437; SZ 385), and that of the second sentence is its resoluteness («The resoluteness which . . . ,» BT 437; SZ 385). However, in the first sentence («sich selbst die ererbte Möglichkeit überliefernd ») the accusative object of this act is the heritage, and that to which the past is handed down (the dative object) is the Dasein and its resoluteness. In the second sentence («sich überliefernde Entschlossenheit»), however, the accusative object of the act of handing down is the Dasein

and its resoluteness, and that to which Dasein hands itself down (the dative object) is the past, which we have to add as the dative object to «sich über-liefernde Entschlossenheit.» Just because Heidegger did not explicitly insert «the possibility it has inherited,» that is «heritage,» as the dative object into the phrase «sich überliefernde Entschlossenheit» (that is, he did not write «sich der ererbten Möglichkeit übefliefernde Entschlossenheit,» «The resoluteness which . . . hands itself down to the possibility it has inherited») does not mean that it should not be added but is merely a matter of his discursive strategies. In section 74 Heidegger talks about «struggling» and «struggle.» Even if he did not, one needs a lot of Verschlossenheit against what Heidegger means by «sich überliefern.» The verb «übefliefern» is used mainly in the passive voice as participle perfect, often in impersonal constructions. «Es ist überliefert (or überlieferte Sitte), dab wir jeden Sonntag in die Kirche gehen» (It is a tradition [or a custom handed down] that we go to church every Sunday). However, the reflexive form with an accusative and a dative object, «Ich überliefere mich jemandem» (I hand myself over to someone), is used much less frequently and means simply «to surrender oneself to someone.» The expression «sich jemandem überliefern» grows into «sich an jemanden ausliefern,» «sich jemandem übergeben,» or «sich jemandem ergeben»—all of them expressions for «to deliver, surrender, subdue, hand over, subjugate oneself to someone else.»^[22] In its act of subjugation to the inherited possibility, Dasein itself, as Heidegger continues, becomes the Übeflieferung:

The resoluteness which comes back to itself and hands itself down {to the possibility it has inherited}, then becomes the repetition of a possibility of existence that has come down to us. Repeating is handing down explicitly . (BT 437; Die auf sich, sich {zurückkommende, selbst der ererbten Existenzmöglichkeit} überliefernde Entschlossenheit wird dann zur Wiederholung einer überkommenen Existenzmöglichkeit. Die Wiederholung ist die ausdrückliche Überlieferung , SZ 385)

Dasein surrenders itself to the past and through this act is transformed into the past. The phrase «Repeating is handing down explicitly » is explained as follows: «that is to say, going back into the possibilities of the Dasein that has-been-there {das heißt der Rückgang in Möglichkeiten des dagewesenen Daseins}» (BT 437; SZ 385). Therefore, one might say that «Wiederholung» means indeed «fetching again» some past that was ignored as long as Dasein lived ordinarily. Anyway, this aspect also presupposes the act of subjugation, or of being appropriated by the past, as it is developed in the preceding sentence («sich übefliefernde Entschlossenheit»). In this process, Dasein becomes passive and opens itself up to surrendering itself to the past. These are the two aspects of Entschlossenheit I mentioned in the first section of this chapter. It is into these aspects that the concept of resoluteness from the beginning of section 74 develops, because it «has always already» contained them.

As will become clear in chapter 3, Heidegger's usage of these terms is completely in line with that of conservatives and people on the extreme right wing of his time. He explicitly distinguishes both aspects from each other in the subordinate clause of the next sentence. In resoluteness one links and, as it were, subdues oneself to a past calling for its repetition: «For it is in resoluteness that one first chooses the choice which makes one free for the struggle of loyally following in the footsteps of that which can be repeated {denn in ihr wird allererst die Wahl gewählt, die für die kämpfende Nachfolge und Treue zum Wiederholbaren frei macht}» (BT 437; SZ 385).^[23] Upon becoming authentic, Dasein experiences the possibility of Treue. Prior to becoming authentic, Dasein as ordinary Dasein has already repeated, namely, it has repeated what parents, peer group, society—the «they»—have instilled into it. However, it has performed this repetition in a self-evident manner, without much thought and more often than not without enthusiasm. Upon becoming authentic, it realizes that what it has repeated is ordinary and inauthentic. The authentic possibility having been revealed to the Dasein, the latter understands that it has to dedicate itself to the former. It has to be treu, true, loyal, and devoted to what can be repeated. In other words, what can be repeated has a claim on Dasein, namely, that Dasein must actualize what can be repeated as faithfully as possible and thus must place itself at the service of what can be repeated. Therefore, from the beginning of this passage on, there is a sense of a demanding past—a past in the singular—for which Dasein has to open itself, to make itself free, and into which Dasein itself is transformed in order then to fight for this past and rerealize it.^[24]

It is true that Heidegger speaks here of possibilities in the plural: «in Möglichkeiten des dagewesenen Daseins» (SZ 385; BT 437, «into the possibilities of the Dasein that has-been-there»). But what does this mean? The possibilities are the possibilities of an entity in the singular, namely «des dagewesenen Daseins» (SZ 385; «of the Dasein that has-been-there,» BT 437), which one has to equate with «destiny,» «Ülberlieferung,» that is, with tradition or past. The possibilities of the Dasein that has-been-there are not only those this Dasein actually lived but also those it has not yet lived but is capable of actualizing in the future. Both kinds of possibilities are meant by «Rück-gang in Möglichkeiten» (SZ 385; «going back into the possibilities,» BT 437). The reason why Dasein, detaching itself from the «they,» running ahead toward death and surrendering itself to the past, chooses and must choose options for the past that the past itself has not yet actualized is introduced in the next passage: subjugating itself to the past, Dasein has to be «free for the struggle of loyally following in the footsteps of that which can be repeated» (BT 437). The emphasis here is on «struggle.» As is well known from anthropology and sociology, a tradition confronted with a threat to its existence reinterprets itself by intensifying the distinction between friend and foe so as to give rise to the violence that can then be used in the struggle against that foe.

Thus, when in danger of being outstripped by the «they,» the past has to develop possibilities it did not need before. The past has to realize these unrealized possibilities to defend itself against those who are about to destroy it or have already destroyed it.

Thus, we arrive at the exact opposite of Guignon's thesis. According to Guignon, in the light of the utopian ideal there is no single past; rather, what we call the past contains several possibilities, some of which we can choose while rejecting others. In so doing, we dissolve, so to speak, the unity of the past. According to my interpretation, however, there is a strong single past to which we have to subjugate ourselves. The possibilities in plural are the ones for the future into which Dasein has to project itself in order to preserve the past's unity or to regain its existence in the future. Furthermore, Heidegger's passage shows already that out of the subjugation, as a passivity resulting from Dasein's act of detaching itself from the «they,» a new activity of the Dasein arises—the loyal struggle for the past.

Heidegger's text continues:

But when one has, by repetition, handed down to oneself a possibility that has been, the Dasein that has-been-there is not disclosed in order to be actualized over again. The repeating of that which is possible does not bring again [Wiederbringen] something that is 'past', nor does it bind the 'Present' back to that which has already been 'outstripped'. Arising, as it does, from a resolute projection of oneself, repetition does not let itself be persuaded {überreden} of something by what is 'past', just in order that this, as something which was formerly actual, may recur. (BT 437; SZ 385)^[25]

To be sure, Heidegger here says that repetition, as the translators put it, «does not mean either a mere mechanical repetition or an attempt to reconstitute the physical past» (BT 437, n. 1). However, a deliberating conversation with the past in Macquarrie and Robinson's sense is not the only alternative to a «mere mechanical repetition» and «reconstitution of a physical past.» First, authentic repetition is not a «mere mechanical repetition» since ordinary Dasein constantly performs mere mechanical repetitions. Ordinary Dasein without any further thought just takes over and repeats what the «they» has instilled into it. Second, this passage may simply make explicit what, according to my interpretation, is implied in the sentence immediately preceding it, namely, that by repeating the past, Dasein has to develop all those hitherto unrealized possibilities in the past that are necessary to fight for the endangered past. This gives the past a very strong, demanding character vis-à-vis the Dasein, a demanding character Heidegger has already hinted at with the switch to Dasein that «hands itself down {to the possibility it has inherited}» and with the words «struggle» and «loyally» in the preceding sentences and will bring out more clearly through a subtle switch from the prefix «wieder» to the prefix or root, «wider.» Third, independent of this interpretation, ever since Hegel's

criticism of the romantic movement, anyone interested in any kind of resurrection of the past, return to the past, or defense of the past against progress, had to defend this project against the charge of nostalgic romanticism. Thus, Heidegger accordingly pays his due by telling readers that «repetition» does not mean a simple return to the past. Again, he will make clear the sense of this negation in the sentences on «erwidert» and «Widerruf.» However, the passage with wiederbringen and überreden has a subtext referring to the idea of the subjugation of Dasein to the past as indicated by the exchange of the two objects of «überliefernd»; this subtext will be even clearer in the subsequent sentences on erwidert and Widerruf.

The German word «überreden» (to talk a person into) is not «überzeugen» (to convince). One überredet others only if one has no good reasons with which to convince them. Now, according to Heidegger, the past does not überreden Dasein. So, might the past überzeugen Dasein? This is the option Macquarrie and Robinson chose. If one says, «I have been überzeugt by,» one regards oneself as a reasonable and autonomous person who cannot be überredet (talked into) but only be convinced by compelling arguments in a free exchange. However, as pointed out above, this would have required Heidegger to use «erwidert vielmehr» (SZ 386; BT 438) in the dative. Thus, since the past does not überzeugen us, we are not autonomous vis-à-vis the past. However, the past does not überreden us either (in that case we would be autonomous too but, so to speak, caught in a moment of inattention). What then does the past do? If überreden is in the middle, and if it is not the extreme überzeugen, it must be the other extreme: «Und bist Du nicht willig, so brauch' ich Gewalt.»^[26] It is precisely this violence, or command, that is at the other extreme. What Heidegger says here, then, is that the past does not überzeu-gen us, and at the same time the past is not in so weak a position that it would need the not quite kosher means of Überredung. Indeed, the past is in a much stronger position, for it has a claim on us. Therefore, the past Heidegger is writing about here is not a vanished past without any claim on us but one that is alive and has a powerful hold on us. This is the reason why Heidegger puts the word «'past'» (BT 438; «"Vergangenheit",» SZ 385) into quotation marks. It is only from the vantage point of those not interested in any sort of resurrection of the past that this past can be said to have disappeared and to have no claims on us anymore. However, this is the perspective of the «they.» From the viewpoint of authentic Dasein, this past has not disappeared at all, but is very present. It is not past at all, and it demands of us that we subjugate ourselves to it and defend or re-realize it. Thus, the way from «nicht . . . überreden» (SZ 386; «not . . . be persuaded,» BT 437) does not lead to überzeugen but rather to überwältigen (overpower, overwhelm).

This is made more explicit in the following sentence with «erwidert»: «Rather, the repetition makes a reciprocative rejoinder to {erwidert } the possibility of that existence which has-been-there» (BT 438; SZ 386). As men-

tioned above, Macquarrie and Robinson's interpretation of this sentence as proposing a deliberating conversation with the different ways of having-been-there in the past, or with the different heroes, would be right if Heidegger had used «erwidert» in the dative. Also, the transition from Dasein as «handing down to itself the possibility it has inherited» to Dasein as «resoluteness which . . . hands itself down {to the possibility it has inherited}» (BT 437) shows that there is no conversation with the past. Rather, «erwidert» means either a subjugation to the past or, as Birmingham would have it, a counterattack against the past. However, Heidegger's next sentence makes clear that he does not mean a counterattack.